The former French president has received a new complaint for corruption
The French Justice is already investigating the attribution of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar
former french president Nicolas Sarkozy has received a new corruption complaint linked to the attribution to Qatar of the 2022 World Cup, already investigated by the French Justice.
The Anticor anti-corruption association has filed this complaint, which is also directed against Sarkozy’s right-hand man, former minister Claude Guéantagainst a publicist, who is at the origin of the current revelations, and against the former prime minister of Qatar Hamad ben Jassem al-Thani.
The basis of this procedure are the statements of publicist François de La Brosse, who worked for free on Sarkozy’s electoral campaign in 2007 and in his first years at the Elysée.
After leaving power, his advertising company ran into financial problems and he turned to Sarkozy to help him overcome them.
The then French president, through Guéant, put him in contact with Qatari companies that, according to the NGO signing the complaint, owed him favors, after Sarkozy’s intervention so that the Persian Gulf country could organize the World Cup.
La Brosse has told the newspaper Le Monde that he was in contact with the Qatari company Q.Media, with which he signed a pre-contract but only after it threatened Sarkozy to expose his unpaid work, which could affect in the candidate’s campaign accounts.
The publicist has assured that, at the last moment, the president abandoned him.
This new complaint adds to the investigation opened by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office in 2019 regarding the attribution of the World Cup to Qatar and, in particular, the intervention of Sarkozy.
In the eye of Justice is the lunch organized in November 2010 at the Elysée by the president together with the head of UEFA, michel platiniand the then crown prince and current emir of Qatar, Tamim Al Thani.
Investigators suspect that Sarkozy’s pro-Qatar intervention changed the influencer’s mind platiniwhich led to a shift in the vote in UEFA, which initially pointed to the United States, to attribute the competition to Qatar.
Therefore, heThe Prosecutor’s Office investigates possible crimes of “corruption” and “laundering”.